SILVER LINING

It’s easy to be depressed, at least for people who share my values, by the election. I’m back in the political wilderness, a time when people I don’t like are going to be running the country, and running it badly. It’s easy to get angry at those who underestimated the opponent, voted for him, were too overconfident, did not see the handwriting on the wall, and other errors of commission or omission. But I’m not going to primarily cast blame here. I am looking instead at the silver linings.

During the campaign, Ms. Clinton received a demand from Black Lives Matter to apologize for slavery and racism. Had she done that, the election would have been over in August. Instead of discussing what they would do about the economy–and they had good ideas– the Democrats were sidetracked by groups whom they help but who do not turn out to vote for them when it matters. Working class whites—their traditional support— will turn out, but they don’t care a whit about bathroom regulation, and nor do I, quite frankly. Considering a significant number of LGBTQ folks voted for the Other, it might be wise to direct the Party’s outreach efforts elsewhere. That’s a silver lining, I hope.

The Democrats are going to learn a lot if they look at the numbers. Secretary Clinton will win by more a million votes nationwide, but she needed about a tenth of those votes distributed into Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Learning can start with Wisconsin, which had almost the same number of Republican votes in 2012, whereas the Democrats got two hundred thousand fewer. Was this due to staying home or switching sides? Maybe the Republican vote would have been a lot less. The Democrats need to be walking through the state and finding answers.

The Democratic Party can now be remade. Clinton is gone. It’s time for a younger generation to remake the Party into something relevant for the American people. I suspect young Democrats will be more inclusive, tolerant of more diversity, hopefully more interested in science and climate change than the politicians today. In any case, they’ve got two years to figure out where the Party is going. Secretary Clinton was going to be investigated during her entire term, had she been elected, and now that is moot. She probably would have had terrible midterms in 2018 and been voted out in 2020. It was unlikely that the Democrats would have 16 consecutive years of the presidency. Twelve would have been a stretch.

Go where the votes are. White voters are still the largest bloc. Listen to them and campaign where they live. That means campaign in all 50 states, because even if the presidential nominee doesn’t win the state, the nominee can help with local elections. The number of Democrats in local and state offices has tanked in the last 8 years. Increasing these numbers should be a major priority, especially before the 2020 redistricting. Every Democratic leader needs to know the numbers of Democrats in office throughout the country. There is now time to fix this problem.

The Republicans now own the government, all three branches. They own it, and if they start taking away safety nets, the Democrats need to remind people who is doing it. Frankly, the party of people who actually understand the English language needs to quit losing the battle of words to those who can barely spell.

Addressing climate change won’t occur, but it was DOA under both candidates. We reached a stage several years ago where people said the climate was changing, but it wasn’t due to man. Now it is simply that it hasn’t changed at all—the snowball on the Senate floor, the record low that occurs, the warm year that is 0.1 degrees cooler than the prior year. We are going backward on climate change. While I deeply regret what is going to happen to the Earth in the next four years, I am optimistic. I’m optimistic that nature, biology, chemistry, and physics will unleash energy that will perhaps be the Magnitude 10 environmental event that might wake us up. In the next eight years, there is a high likelihood that fisheries will crash, stronger storms will occur, hotter days, floods, droughts, and to humans, environmental mayhem. I’m a lot more certain it will be sooner than predicted, since predictions have been shown to be too conservative. To nature, it is just biology, physics, and chemistry following the rules when the ingredients are mixed with the proper temperature and pressure.

The Democrats won’t be responsible for any major terrorist attack, dealing with Russia, Iran, Syria, or North Korea; any one of which could blow any time. Oh, the Democrats will be blamed, I’m sure, but the buck stops with the Republicans. Should we go to war, the debt burden will be squarely upon the Republicans, assuming the Democrats don’t let them off the hook this time with off-budget “emergency authorizations.”

The Democrats won’t be responsible for any oil spill into the Missouri River, the Ogallala Aquifer or anywhere else where pipelines were resisted. Much of the damage will be in red states. We will help clean up the mess, but we will also be sure to remind people who did this to them.

While the Other says there will be a rebuilding of infrastructure, something we need to do, Mr. Ryan, should he still be Speaker, will be wanting to save money. Such conflict should be interesting, and I am looking forward to see if it is infrastructure jobs, which I think an excellent idea, or protecting the national deficit, which while laudable, is second to infrastructure. Should Mr. Ryan prevail, many infrastructure jobs will not occur, and this will not be the salvation of the “jobs, jobs, jobs” group, who should instead be hearing “fewer children, fewer children, fewer children.”

We’ve had a Democrat womanizer in the White House. He got impeached. The Other may behave himself in the White House. That remains to be seen. Suffice it to say that I think there will be far more scandals in his administration. There will be more men in it, more white men, and that is a good recipe for scandals. Newt Gingrich is Exhibit B.

I am worried about public land being transferred to the states. On the other hand, I have been able to spend many happy hours in such land. If there is a transfer, those who had been pushing for such will likely be denied access by those who have the money to buy it and to cut off access. I’m selfish. I enjoyed it greatly. I can read and teach math.

I expect the media to complain vigorously when they are denied access. The media needs to stop treating the Other as a celebrity and hit him hard every time there is a scandal or a mistake. In other words, they need to treat him like a Democrat. There should be no more free passes for the winner. This is not The Apprentice. Or maybe it is, with the nation’s fate in the hands of a rookie, who is greener than the Chicago River on March 17. We need better writers, not better looking celebrities who pass for them. Reporters now asking the Other what he really believes are a bit late.

I look forward to Trickle Down economics being given its full chance. While I am not in the top 1%, I benefit from tax cuts, although I keep voting against my economic self-interest. When we are plunged into a recession, which we will, Trickle Down will finally die its appropriate death, at least for this generation. I doubt it will disappear forever.